The Sinhalese-Tamil enmity is a modern retrojection onto an embellished ancient chronicle.
Evidence
The Sinhalese Buddhist myth that has been most baneful to interethnic harmony is the embellished and dissembled account in the Mahavamsa dealing with King Duthagamani (second century BCE). According to this myth, Duthagamani was the son of a southern ruler who was exceedingly unhappy when Cholas from South India usurped power in Anuradhapura, the island’s capital at the time. The young Duthagamani went to battle against the Chola king Elara and killed him. The Mahavamsa makes clear that Elara was among thirty-two rulers Duthagamani waged battle against and that many Buddhist rulers supported Elara. The Dipavamsa, precursor to the Mahavamsa, makes no special mention of a war between Duthagamani and Elara. But nearly a century later the Mahavamsa’s author, Mahanama, elaborated at length on the account. The battle may have been a regional affair. Mahanama also may have exaggerated the Duthagamani-Elara episode to overcome “sectarian struggles” within the sangha and privilege his order at a time when it was being marginalized (Kulke 2000: 134). Whatever the reasons, Buddhist nationalists, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, have emphasized the Sinhalese and Tamil ethnicities of Duthagamani and Elara, respectively, and have claimed that the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict is two millennia old. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 75
Categorization
- XREF: Core evidence for reader’s thesis that ethnic enmity is manufactured — a seventeenth-century-style modern claim grafted onto an ancient account that originally had no ethnic dimension. — connects to: Sinhalese-Tamil enmity is legitimized by myth rather than primordial fact — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 78; Ancient heroic myths are retrofitted onto living Sinhalese leaders to justify dominance. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 79; Sinhalese Buddhist identity was antiquarian but its modern nationalist ideology is reinterpreted and manipulated — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 85 (+1 more)
- SEED: The internal motive — Mahanama fabricating to win a sectarian struggle within his own Buddhist order — is a striking angle: the ‘external enemy’ myth may originate in intra-group, not inter-group, politics.
- DEEPTHINKING: Reveals a layered genealogy: ancient sectarian politics → chronicle embellishment → 19th/20th-century nationalist retrofitting into an eternal two-millennia conflict.
Broader Connections
- Sinhalese-Tamil enmity is legitimized by myth rather than primordial fact
#corroborates(0.90) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 78 - Sinhalese Buddhist identity was antiquarian but its modern nationalist ideology is reinterpreted and manipulated
#corroborates(0.82) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 85 - Ancient heroic myths are retrofitted onto living Sinhalese leaders to justify dominance.
#exemplifies(0.80) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 79